


Dear John

by Kahvi



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Childhood Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-03 07:25:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4092241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Starbug crew come across (yet another) abandoned research station, but this time, it's not the scientific discoveries they find there that most surprises them. Rimmer makes a personal discovery that might have dramatic consequences, but can he sort out his personal feelings and agendas before it's too late?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to emergencyfruit for the encouragement and help to solve a plot-related problem that had this story stalled for years! (And for her last minute, infinitely patient beta!) And as always, thanks to the amazing Roadstergal for help and science.

It was one of those truly tacky photographs made up to look two-dimensional and flat despite being taken with a digital tri-D camera and printed out. Just after Polariods had come back into fashion when it was discovered how practical they were on long space flights, only the very disgustingly rich could afford them. The cameras and film had gone out of production, and until it could be resumed on a larger scale, the few remaining copies were suddenly more valuable than diamonds. But if you didn't have a lot of money, and merely wanted it to appear that you had, you'd go for one of these jobs; extensively doctored, presumably overpriced, and printed on poor quality paper. In its defense, it had endured three million years and change in Rimmer's locker.

Lister changed his grip on it, afraid it would crumble if he held it any harder. "So that's you, then?"

"Of course not," Rimmer snapped, "that's my brother Howard. He doesn't look anything like me; I don't see how you'd mistake the two of us."

Lister stared at the photograph. A young, terrified face with murky-green eyes under questioning brows peered out at him. The boy's nostrils seemed to quiver, perhaps an effect from the shoddy 2D conversion. "It's not?"

"No, of course it's not! That's me, over there, by the tree."

Following Rimmer's pointing finger, Lister narrowed his eyes. "What; holding the end of that rope?"

"No," that's Frank. Honestly; you must need reading glasses."

Lister wanted to ask what the rope was for, but knowing Rimmer's family, he thought better of it. "There's no one else there though! Apart from that guy in the corner." A third boy, taller than the others, stared blankly at the camera from the opposite side of the photograph. The face was the same, but the eyes were different; older, duller. Lister didn't know if that was more or less disturbing.

"Of course there is!" Rimmer snatched the picture away, then held it up against Lister's face, so close that he could barely make the figures out anymore. "There."

"Where?"

"What do you mean 'where'; right there! Behind the tree!"

"Behind the tree?"

"Yes; are you even listening? There; you can see my left foot."

"Rimmer," Lister began, already dreading the answer, "why are you standing behind a tree in your family photo?"

Rimmer shifted a little, carefully putting the photograph back in its protective sleeve. "Well, we were all in our winter uniforms. House colors. You know. Mummy didn't want me ruining the composition of the picture."

"Eh?" Lister took a step back. He vaguely knew what ‘winter uniforms’ were, but his school’s idea of them had been long sleeved jumpers instead of t-shirts with the regulation trousers.

"I was Io House, of course. Would have messed the entire thing up. I don't blame her; that picture cost a fortune. They took money out of my allowance so I could get a copy."

Having no idea what to say to that, Lister pointed, instead, to the boy in the corner. "So who's that, then?"

Rimmer paused for a moment, frowning. "Oh," he said, putting the photograph back in his locker and locking the door, "that's just John."

* * *

Starbug had been running on fumes for days, and a restocking was long overdue. Unfortunately, the region they were flying through seemed to be as deserted as... well... most of space. It was beginning to worry Lister. He'd been assuming Red Dwarf was still headed towards Earth, so that by following its vapor trail, they'd still be on route. But if they were really getting closer to Earth, they should be seeing more evidence of human habitation, not less of it, right? There were a few answers to that question, and Lister wasn't sure he liked any of them.

Kryten was trying to keep everyone's spirits up and Rimmer was doing his best to knock them down, and between them, Lister was starting to feel like he was on a looped roller coaster. Pulling double shifts was an easy way to avoid contact with either of them, despite Kryten's protests that he wasn't getting enough sleep. With nothing else to entertain him, all Lister did between shifts was eat and sleep, anyway. Sometimes he'd even sleep on shift. Not like there was anything to see, right?

He woke, abruptly, when Rimmer shook his arm almost to the point of dislocation.

"...smegging idiot! Get this thing in reverse, or we'll miss the orbit!"

The alarm had 'sounded', if that was the word; the siren had given out months ago. What remained was a solitary flashing bulb, currently a sickly orange. It was not, on the whole, ideal waking-up conditions. "What've we found?"

"The question you should be asking, Listy, is what have _I_ found. Only those conscious at the time of discovery need apply."

"All right; just point me in the right direction, yeah?"

"30 degrees Starboard, hard."

In the navigator's chair, Cat was curled up, waving his hands at imaginary enemies. Lister jerked a thumb at him. "Why're'ye not harassing him? He's hardly moved since his shift started!"

"Which is more than I expect from him. Now turn this crate around, or I'll get Kryten in to give you encouraging advice."

Lister nodded, turning the wheel somewhat distractedly. Had Rimmer just given him a sort of compliment?

It was not the first hidden science and research station they'd come across, but it was by far the largest. The fact that they had almost managed to miss it entirely was to the credit of its builders. The entire complex was encased within an asteroid that had been forced into orbit around one of the larger planets in this barren system. A superficial scan revealed nothing out of the ordinary; only Rimmer's insistence on launching scouters to search any and all objects they encountered had given any indication of artificial construction anywhere on it. This fact had made Lister wince; they would never hear the end of that. One of the scouters, the smaller, older model that Lister had taken to calling Arnold Jr. because of the way it made Rimmer's face twitch, had come across the entrance and docking bay almost by accident.

Flying in was a nerve-wrecking affair; up until the very last moment, it appeared as though they were about to crash into solid rock, until the surface shifted slightly, slowly opening up to admit them in. Whatever this place was, Lister thought, ignoring Rimmer's angry shouts of backseat piloting, it was important to someone.

By some miracle, the internal wireless network sprang to life once they got the power going, and Kryten happily connected to it, chatting idly with the various subsystems and departmental computers as they traversed the dusty corridors. The size of the place, he quickly informed them, was due to the fact that it incorporated not only laboratories and living quarters, but also recreational facilities for the staff; everything from food courts to AR-parlors and even a small nightclub. Relishing the idea of replenishing their alcohol and game supplies, Lister gave little thought to their current surroundings; one of the laboratories which lay between the recreational and living areas. Rimmer, however, seemed on edge.

"Would someone put that kitten on a leash?" He pointed a shaking finger at the Cat, who was staring transfixedly at a display of brightly colored bottles. "There's no telling what could be in those tubes!"

"According to the labels, sir, it's decorative colored water."

"Oh, labels, schmables; water's just another chemical! After all these years, who knows what it may have turned into!"

Kryten coughed politely, leaning against one of the larger looking machines. "Sir, if I may; this is not one of those facilities."

Lister knew what he meant. There were a few empty beakers and bits of machinery about, but nothing sinister-looking. You got the feeling for it, after a few years of running into mutated monsters.

"From what I'm being told, the research conducted here was mainly in physics. There's a small cloning facility, a couple of biology labs for incidental research, but that it."

Lister frowned. "Isn't cloning illegal?"

"Human cloning, yes. Not cloning of research animals."

"Human cloning was legal on Io," Rimmer supplied, still watching Cat with a raised eyebrow.

"Why am I not surprised? Lighten up, Rimmer." Lister poked a glass fronted cabinet with his foot. "Anyway, it's dogs ye put on a leash."

"I'm nothing but light," Rimmer mumbled, but moved on, to the sound of Cat making an impromptu 'butt' joke behind him.

* * *

Eventually, the laboratories petered out, giving way to more office-like spaces. On Kryten's suggestion, the four of them split up, looking for the communal cryogenic freezer and staff medicine cabinet that was supposed to be somewhere in the area. Feeling a little lost and bored, eager to get through this so they could go to what were clearly the more interesting areas of the station, Lister poked his head half-heartedly into a few of the offices, raffling through nearly-disintegrating paper and, in one instance, chuckling at the rude graffiti someone had carved into the side of a desk.

The offices were all identical. Having seen two, Lister felt like he'd seen a dozen, and having seen a dozen, he wished he'd never seen any. Each had a desk, an uplink to the network and a keyboard for interfacing with it, a wall-screen that doubled as a mirror with a couple of tape slots underneath. Even the wastepaper baskets were in exactly the same place. Lister kicked one of them over, scowling at the thing.

“No luck then I take it, sir?” Kryten hovered politely in the doorway.

“Not really, no. You?”

“Unfortunately, no. I did find some research papers and some rather informative video diaries concerning some of the projects undertaken here.”

“Yeah?” Lister couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm, but it had to be less boring than what he’d been stuck with. “What sort of things did they get up to, then?”

“You’ll find this interesting; they had actually developed a prototype hard light drive.”

“No kidding!” Lister slumped down into the surprisingly comfortable office chair, and threw his feet up on the desk. “Maybe we could pick up a spare for Rimmer?”

Kryten shook his head. “I wouldn’t advice that, sir. They never really made it past the trial stages. Even the last prototype documented was highly unstable; inevitably short-circuiting and causing irreparable damage to the simulated personality encased within.”

“You say that like it’s a bad…” The loud hissing of a discontented Cat cut Lister short. Exchanging a glance, he and Kryten scrambled out of the little cubicle, rushing towards the sound. They didn’t have to go far. Just around the corner, Cat was pressed up against the corridor wall, making eyes at the open office door in front of him. Lister sidled up to him, carefully.

“Hey man, what’s the trouble?”

Cat scowled at him, eyes narrow, ears doing that creepy thing where they nearly closed in on themselves. He usually only did that during Lister’s guitar practice sessions. “I’m not going back in there! Gave me the fright of my life.” He shuddered, while simultaneously trying to compose himself. He settled, eventually, on carefully licking a cuff link clean.

What the smeg, Lister thought, just as Rimmer rounded the corner.

“What’s going on here? I heard fish-breath yelping like Lister had gotten his guitar out.” For a moment, Rimmer looked panicked. “My god; you didn’t bring it here, did you?”

“Sirs…” Kryten had entered the office, his massive metal back blocking Lister’s view. “You may want to see this.”

* * *

There was no sound, but the screen had been set to play back a video tape; probably one of those project diaries Kryten had mentioned. Standing uncomfortably close to Rimmer in the little office space, Lister stared at the face before them. A middle aged man in that indefinable space between 40 and 50 spoke soundlessly at them with an affable, apologetic smile. His iron grey hair was very closely cropped, just barely showing signs of receding. His eyes were warm and friendly; their color, like his age, impossible to pin down, though brown and green made obvious contributions. He was holding an unrecognizable piece of machinery and gesticulating eagerly.

Lister stared.

Rimmer stared. “Great space,” he mumbled, “that’s me.”

“No,” Lister said, pointing to name tag on the man’s shirt, “that’s your brother, John.”


	2. Chapter 2

John Julius Rimmer, the station’s records showed, had been recruited from Space Corps science division specifically for the hard light project. His innovative and unconventional work in the field of experimental physics had caught the attention of the project’s managers; representatives from a group of various corporations, some medical, some biotech, some from industries Lister had never even heard of. Rimmer’s brother had been cherry picked and relocated shortly after the project's inception. That was the point at which Lister had stopped reading, though Rimmer remained hunched over the printouts Kryten had provided, his brow furrowing almost in on itself. 

"You realize what this means?"

Rimmer ignored him, burrowing further into the printouts.

"The Space Corps only operates within the solar system! If they could get John..."

Rimmer looked up, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"...relocated from wherever he was, it had to have been close enough that he could get from there to here without going into stasis!" 

Pulling the final sheet out of his mouth and biting it cleanly off, Kryten nodded. "Not an unreasonable assumption, sir."

"Well, do ya get what this means, man?" Turning the wastepaper basket over and jumping on top of it, Lister grabbed the top of Kryten's head, giving it a big, wet kiss. "We're getting closer! We're still on route!" 

"Oh, for smeg's sake," Rimmer grumbled, shifting so he faced the wall. 

"Earth, man!" Jumping down, Lister leaned down to whoop into Rimmer's ear. He was rewarded by nothing more than an irritated shiver.

Kryten smiled conspiratorily. "I've managed to locate the kitchens, sir. They were virtually fully stocked. I know it's only Monday, but might I suggest..." He wiggled his lack of eyebrows meaningfully. 

"Curry night?" 

Waking from his slumber at Lister's feet, Cat rose, abruptly. "Tonight? But I didn't bring anything that goes with Masala!" 

"I could make it Vindaloo, if that would help?"

Wordlessly, as Cat rushed off muttering something about cumin, Lister embraced the mechanoid in a hug.

* * *

It really wasn't such a bad nightclub, all things considered. Before they'd found Kryten, and while Cat was still vary enough to startle and run away the odd time he came across the humans, Lister would spend much of his free time - which was more or less all of his time - at Parrot's, Red Dwarf's enlisted men's bar. Parrot's was the sort of place you went because you had absolutely nowhere else to go, and everything about it reflected that fact, from the tacky décor to the piss-poor selection of beer, which, as Petersen had pointed out, also was an indication of its flavor. It made sense; with no need to lure in customers, why make more than a minimum of effort with anything? 

The three of them had started out in the communal restaurant, Kryten taking over the kitchens and cooking a three course Indian meal. Rimmer had stayed behind, refusing to budge from the printouts and reports he was pouring over. Lister hadn’t wanted to press the issue; this was probably Rimmer’s way of dealing with the sudden reminder that his brother was dead. Yeah, he’d known all along, but it was like his father all over again, wasn’t it? Knowledge at the back of your mind is one thing; an actual, tangible reminder quite another. Give the man some time to deal. This place wasn’t going anywhere. 

Partway through dessert, Cat had bored of the proceedings, and wandered off. Lister had dragged a weakly protesting Kryten here, where the mechanoid had promptly shut down after two high quality mechano-shots from the robot bartender. It was just a mechanical arm mounted on the bar, which was probably why it was still working. No, this place was nothing like Parrot’s. For one thing; the glasses they gave you were still relatively clean after three million years, while Parrot’s barely managed ‘see-through’ on a good day. This place was class. 

Downing his seventh neon-colored drink, Lister licked his lips thoughtfully. He’d taken Kris to Parrot’s, on one of their first, and by nature of their relationship also last, dates. It hadn’t been an unmitigated success; a dead-drunk Petersen had attached himself to them by the end of the evening, and ended up throwing up over Lister’s shoes. Could have been worse though. Could have been Kris’s shoes. And anyway, it hadn’t put her off. That’s the sort of lady she was. Class. The sort of person who belonged here, in this club; on this station. There was no way a place like this would even let Petersen in the door, or Lister, for that matter. No, this place belonged to people like Kris. Like Rimmer’s brother. 

Lister frowned, looking into his mysteriously empty glass. It had been full a moment ago. He wanted to order another, but there were far too many consonants in the items on the menu swimming in front of his eyes. Rimmer’s brother. Now there was a thing. You couldn’t deny them being related after seeing that face of the vid, but that just made it all the weirder. How could anyone related to that smegpot be considered a desirable employee, much less an asset valuable enough to be headhunted specifically for a project? Sure, Ace had said it was just a matter of missed opportunities, but even so. The guy in the vid had looked mellow, amicable; almost attractive. Letting the glass roll quietly to the floor, Lister got up. He’d clearly had at least one too many. Time to find a place to crash for the night.

* * *

They had taken a brief tour of the residential area before heading out to eat; it would take more than a day to stock up, and in any case the facilities here were much better than what the ‘bug had to offer. Even Rimmer had agreed they would be better off sleeping here, though Lister suspected he would have agreed to anything to be allowed to keep his eyes glued to those reports just a little while longer. Smeg knew what he thought he could find in there; maybe he was hoping the experimental drive had some advantage to his own. He’d be out of luck there; Kryten had told Lister that the last time the drive had been tested, the resulting explosion had accidentally excavated a space in the rock walls large enough to build a brand new laundry facility. 

Intent on enjoying the rare luxury of being able to avoid Rimmer, Lister tried to give the office the hologram was holed up in a wide berth, but all the little rooms looked exactly the same. He was starting to think he'd doubled back on himself when he was shoved, violently, against the corridor wall. Lister turned his head just in time to catch a glimpse of blue metallic uniform disappearing around the corner. Still reeling from the blow, the alcohol in his system not helping, he took a few uncertain steps in the direction Rimmer had stormed off. 

"Rimmer?"

No reply came. Lister bit his lip. Rimmer never got angry. Not actually angry; he got exasperated, he bristled; he got irritated and annoyed. But actual, blind rage? That was new. And this had been rage. Even from that brief encounter, you could almost smell it. Slowly, Lister turned his head in the opposite direction, expecting anything from a herd of slavering GELF-dogs to cleaning robots gone mad following, but there was nothing. Not even a whisper. No, actually, there was a whisper. He followed the sound, nervously. 

"Hello?"

"…is dangerous to muck about with, but what do you expect from the lab monkeys they employ in this place? I couldn't tell you how many times..."

Sniggering, Lister turned the corner. Of course; the vid was still running in John's office! The sound was on now though. Curious, Lister stepped inside, settling into the almost-comfortable chair. He spent a few minutes fiddling with the on-screen controls before finding the timer, fast forward and reverse. The tape had been running for just under an hour. Well. Whatever had produced that reaction from Rimmer would be worth sitting through. Lister pressed the auto-rewind button, fished the emergency can of lager he’d taken at the restaurant out of his pocket, and leaned back in anticipation.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, he was starting to rethink the idea. So far, the diary had been nothing but vague ramblings about calculations, rants about other researchers and their work routines, the occasional cursing of something or someone called “Schrödinger”, and speculations about why their latest test had failed. John’s rants were never as vitriolic or childish as Rimmer’s, and he seemed to have a sense of humor and a good helping of common sense, but despite the age difference, the physical resemblance was uncanny. The vid was not, as Lister had first expected, a research diary - this became evident when John began an entry with a long diatribe about someone named Saunders who evidently kept messing with the margins of the actual research diary, apparently a physical document. He was on about this again now, staring angrily at the camera, nostrils flaring in an eerily familiar fashion. 

_“It’s a legal document! Keeping it up to date is part of our jobs, not that Saunders ever read his actual job description. I saw him working on it the other night, and he was using a non-standard ruler! We’re provided with standardized rulers; there’s a reason for that, which I tried to explain, but he just laughed at me.”_

John smiled, startling Lister, who had been expecting a snort or a scathing comment. 

_“Smeg, listen to me, going on. It’s so easy to get hung up on the little things when you’re stuck in here.” He raised a mocking eyebrow. “Despite the excellent selection of restaurants and leisure facilities.” John laughed, softly, running his hands over his short-cropped hair._

Lister shook his head. Unbelievable. How were these two even related? 

_“We’re supposed to be making scientific breakthroughs, and I’m here complaining about people not keeping the contents page up to date, and crossing things out. Though crossing things out is really unacceptable in lab diaries, and I feel I’ve a right to complain about it. It's like being back in school, for smeg's sake; next the lab techs will be putting my ruler in liquid nitrogen to make all the centimeters smaller. Not that I'm bitter.”_ John laughed, a slightly desperate tone sneaking into it, then banged his head against the keyboard repeatedly. For quite a while, he just lay there, and Lister was beginning to worry that he’d actually died. That would have explained Rimmer’s reaction. Eventually, however, an arm rose up to turn the camera off. The screen blinked, and a new entry started up. 

_“Even negative results are useful.”_

John’s face, suddenly looking older, though the time-stamp noted it was the following day, regarded Lister with tired eyes. 

_“That’s what I keep telling myself. Negative can be useful. So I suppose the fact that we’ve melted three prototypes to a state beyond repair, permanently damaged the auxiliary power supply and blown up parts of the actual station should have some sort of benefit.”_ John sighed, resting his head in one hand and drumming the fingers of his other on the table. _“I don’t know. I’ve never been one of nature’s optimists.”_

Lister giggled. 

_“McCole keeps pushing for what she calls 'human trials', but frankly, I don't see the point. We'd have to embed the personality simulation in the bee, and if things go belly up again, that's one ridiculously expensive personality construct wasted. I mean, even the discs are a couple of dollarpounds shy of my yearly salary."_

Remembering Kryten's words, Lister grit his teeth in sympathy. They must have tried anyway, and whichever poor hologram had been in there at the time had been fried like a Scottish snickers bar.

_"Though I suppose if they want to waste their money, so be it. It's not like an actual person is involved."_

Ouch. Lister grimaced. That would have set Rimmer off, certainly, but hadn't he always said his brothers didn't like him? Surely this would only be some perverted extension of that. No, Lister thought, leaning in closer, taking another sip of his beer, there had to be something more...

He fast-forwarded through some segments that were mostly John going over the same calculations again and again, using a digital blackboard. Not all of the entries had been recorded in the office; in some, the background showed a small table and a couple of rickety chairs, a fake window, and even a meticulously made bed with pristine sheets. In some of those recordings, like the one running now, Lister could sometimes see movement around the edges of the picture. Someone was in the room with John. Lister stopped the tape, staring at the silhouette. 

Curious, Lister pressed 'play' once again, pressing his face close to the screen. When the silhouette suddenly flashed into the foreground, Lister nearly fell off his chair. 

_"You still going, then?"_ It was a broad, cheerful face, eyes light blue and grinning. It looked into the camera, pushing John playfully away. 

_"Smeg off, Saunders."_

This was Saunders, then. Lister quirked a smile. There was something refreshingly familiar about this situation. 

_"John has to go to bed now,"_ Saunders told the camera, fending the still-struggling John off. _"He's been up 'til 4 AM every night for the last week, and some of us actually enjoy sleeping."_

_"I'll use the subvocalizer. You know I do."_

_"I can still hear you pacing!"_

_"It's work, you twonk; it's more important than your beauty-sleep!"_

That tone of voice made Lister laugh out loud; it was exactly the one Rimmer used to wake him when he was late for a shift! Small universe, wasn't it? 

_"I'm turning the camera off."_

_"Like smeg you are!"_

Grinning from ear to ear, Lister followed the on-screen scuffle, shouting out advice and not really knowing who to root for. John was putting up a good fight, finally managing to pin Saunders's hands behind his back. Recognizing the look on Saunders's face, however, Lister didn't think he was home free just yet. 

_"There. Now give up, like a good little boy."_

For a moment, it looked like Saunders was about to do just that. Then, just as John opened his mouth, presumably to declare victory, Saunders shot forth and kissed him, roughly. 

Lister's lager fell to the floor with a dull 'clank'.

* * *

So long as he remembered not to actually think, Rimmer made good progress. Whenever he started thinking, his chest would sort of cramp up, and he would have to lean against the wall and hyperventilate just a bit. He'd only had to do that twice, though. The anger was important. He had to hold on to that, and just not think about why it was there. 

Finding the particular lab was easy. His brother had kept talking about it, and all the labs were in the same place on this sodding rock anyway. The next bit would be somewhat trickier, but Rimmer had the power of rage fuelling him. By this point, it had focused his mind to laser sharpness, and he had no trouble finding the right cabinet, opening the lock with the code he knew would be his mother's birthday, because of the incident with... no, mustn't dwell on that now, and finding the tiny, steel storage case inside. His hands, in flagrant disregard for convention, did not shake one bit as he slowly lifted the sheer, platinum disc from within. 

Rimmer paused, looking at it. It didn't seem like much of anything. About the size of a fingernail; about the color of an over-zealous bleached blonde's hair, slightly transparent. Trying not to breathe (old habits died hard), he walked carefully over to the sleek pedestal in the middle of the room. A clumsy-looking oblong object about the size of two fists lay atop it, divided cleanly in half around the middle. It didn't look broken. Slowly, Rimmer lowered the disc into the slot in the object’s guts, nearly jumping as it clicked neatly into place. 

Rimmer exhaled. He put his hands around each end of the object, hesitating only for a second or two before snapping it closed, and stepped back. There was a soft, low-pitched rumble, then, half-inch by half-inch, the object rose. It hovered forward, wobblingly, then, without warning, light and light and light and light shot out from within.

On instinct, Rimmer shut his eyes. 

When he opened them, John was staring back at him.


	3. Chapter 3

"Thank you so much, sir; I would have rusted in place if you hadn't come along."

"You were only there a few hours, man."

They argued amicably back and forth as they made their way down the corridors of the residential area. It seemed to relieve Kryten’s ridiculous sense of guilt, and it kept Lister’s mind off things.

"Nevertheless! You should stop me, sir, when I start putting them away like that."

"Ye had two drinks."

"Well, that's two too many! I shouldn’t be imbibing while on duty.”

“Yer always on duty, according to yerself.”

He hadn't told Kryten. What would there be to tell? How would he tell it? Lister was a little worried about what Rimmer might get up to, but in all honesty, he was far more worried about what was going on in his own mind. 

This Saunders character hadn’t looked much like him, which gave Lister some comfort. But everything about their relationship and the way they interacted – apart from the saliva-swapping – was like seeing him and Rimmer. It was worrying. Lister wasn’t a worrier. He didn't know what to do with these feelings; he kept twirling them about like ill-fitting Tetris-pieces. 

“So,” Lister said, when Kryten eventually ran out of apologies, “what happened to this place, anyway?”

“What do you mean, sir?” 

“Well, it’s all deserted now, isn’t it?”

Kryten gave him a nonplussed look. “It has been three million years since the station was fully operational, sir.” He pressed the Open button by the door next to them, revealing a spartan, but comfortable-looking bedroom. “Ah; there we are!” 

“No, but you know what I mean; it looks abandoned. There’re no bodies lying around, but all the furniture and everything is still here, and some personal effects, even.” Lister picked up a small teddy bear from the side table by the bed. It was missing one eye, and had a pale blue ribbon around its neck. Somehow, it managed to look at him accusingly, so he put it back down. “So what was it? Flesh and bone-eating virus? Mass kidnapping by GELF raiders? Psychological experiment gone awry, and they all jumped out of the airlock?” He glanced at Kryten. “It wasn’t time travel, was it?” 

Kryten looked up from re-making the already made bed. “They ran out of funding.”

“Eh?”

“From what I can ascertain, sir, the hard light project was what kept this station going. The other projects weren’t as commercially promising, by far. The hard light project brought in the best scientists and high quality equipment, which enterprising other projects could leech off of, and the coming and going of interested parties was enough to keep the supporting services, like the bars and the restaurants, thriving. When its backers pulled out, what little interest and funding the other research generated wasn't enough to make up for the deficit, so the station gradually shut down."

Lister took a few steps away from the bed, digesting this. He always found he thought better when moving. "You mean all this was because of money?"

"Yes, sir. Or rather lack thereof."

Lister nodded. Not because he understood, but because there was no other way to react. All of this; all these rooms, all these hallways, all these offices; teeming with people. Lives had been lived here. He thought about the robot bartender, still serving drinks, completely unaware that millennia had passed since the last round. "Everyone just... left."

"Yes, sir."

"I wonder what happened to them all."

* * *

It was not a pretty sight. John was bent double, gasping for air. Eyes bulging, mouth open, he gave the impression of an overweight guppy. You can't breathe anymore, you twonk, Rimmer thought, gritting his teeth to keep from barking it out. Let the goit suffer. He was clearly smart enough to figure it out on his own. Finally, the worst seemed to be over, and John's eyes slowly focused. 

He blinked. "Arnie?" 

Rimmer glared at him, clenching every muscle. 

"I..." John paused, looking at his hands, running fingers over fingers with a look of abject wonder on his face. "I'm a hologram."

"Of course you're a hologram, you dead git!" Rimmer couldn't hold it back. The words felt like throwing up; something of a relief, but they still left a bitter taste in his mouth.

John looked up, not really seeing Rimmer. Nothing new there, then. Slowly, his stupidly gaping mouth turned upward in a smile. "It worked, didn't it? It actually smegging worked!" He grinned at Rimmer, finally aknowleding his presence. "And you're here! This is fantastic; amazing; I have to tell Saunders!"

"Saunders is dead." 

John stopped, abruptly, smile frozen. "I..."

"And so are you. So is everyone. Three million years dead."

"I..." John repeated, stupidly, like a stuck tape. His eyes flickered around the room, as though suddenly realizing where he was. His face darkened, and he stumbled, leaning awkwardly against the pedestal behind him. "I don't understand."

"You've got an uplink. Access the mainframe," Rimmer said coldly. 

"I don't know how..."

"Just do it!"

John went quiet, and his eyes closed. Rimmer knew the feeling of unfamiliar data flowing into your brain, making itself at home like some uncouth squatter. After just a few seconds, John faced him again. Rimmer knew that face; it was the one you put on when Dad was home, and it was Family Time, and everything had to be right and perfect, and you had to be very careful about everything you said and did. "I see," John said, evenly. 

Rimmer couldn't keep it back anymore. "You said you were dead!"

"I am..." John flushed in realization. "Oh. Yes."

"Mummy sent the letter on to me! She said she wished it were me."

John’s mouth quirked, trying to settle on an expression. “Arnie…”

“Don’t call me that! Don’t you call me that! I saw what you were doing; you dirty… smegging… pervert! You’re just like Howard! I saw you; I saw you on the tape; you were at it for half an hour! Mother didn’t know that, did she? I wish you really had died!”

“Listen, Arnie…”

“My name, ” Rimmer yelled, pulling back his fist, “is Rimmer!” He let the punch go, aiming straight for his brother’s vacant face, gritting his teeth for the impact… which never came. 

John was holding his fist. “Arnie,” he said quietly. 

Rimmer didn’t realize they were hugging until it was too late.

* * *

On the spare bed in the corner at the far side of the room, Kryten was pretending to snore heavily. Lister wasn’t sure if it was just some quirk in his programming, or intended to help Lister sleep. If it was the latter, it wasn’t working. Not that a quiet room would have been much help either. 

It probably was for Lister’s benefit. Before they’d said goodnight, like two best friends at a smegging sleepover, he’d mentioned how quiet the station was. It was true; Lister was used to Starbug’s ‘nureeks’ and ‘rututts’ by now, but even Red Dwarf had been noisier than this. Maybe that had been by design too? Something about the lack of noise made the lack of people all the more obvious. Then again, mile-long mining ships weren’t supposed to be empty. 

This station wasn’t supposed to be empty either. Lister didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Places had gone out of business all the time back in Liverpool; people just left and moved on, or not, depending on the state of the economy. How was this any different? Maybe sheer size was a part of it; when a corner shop or jewelers closed down in Church Street, another would pop up to replace it in due time, or it would be taken over by a restaurant or a Superdrug; something more or less – though usually less – useful coming out of the wreckage. This place though – this place was never coming back, ever. All that was left was ghosts. 

Sighing, Lister flopped over onto his back, trying, at least, to enjoy the crisp sheets and the high quality mattress. It didn’t help. It reminded him of the fact that someone had slept here, which in turn made him think about people sleeping, which was far too close to 'sleeping together', which was definitely not something he wanted to think about right now. He'd stopped the tape before he'd seen any naked bodies, but some of what had been going on between John and Saunders hadn't required nudity. That would probably have surprised Rimmer. No, don't think of Rimmer now! Oh, this was all going to smeg. 

It didn’t mean anything. Of course it didn’t mean anything. He just couldn’t stop thinking about it because, well, seeing John had been such a shock. When Lister had first met Rimmer, he’d been determined to like him. They’d be living together for at least six months, after all, which was the time it usually took JMC to process an application for a room reassignment. And Lister had tried. He really had tried, but it was as though every single aspect of Rimmer’s personality was working against every single aspect of his, attempting to beat it into submission with tiny hammers. 

Eventually, they’d settled into a nice ‘you won’t bother me, I won’t bother you’ sort of arrangement, none of them really keeping up their end of the bargain. But that was as far as it could ever go, and Lister had fully accepted that, long before the accident that got them stuck together for the rest of their lives or lack thereof. Anyway, what it all boiled down to was this; Lister had never really thought about what Rimmer would be like if he were nice. If he wasn’t always so smegging defensive and angry and uptight. Sure, there was Ace, but Ace had been supernatural; unreal. There’d been nothing of Rimmer left in him that Lister could see, so there was no mental connection to make. But John had been very real. 

And John… truth be told, all things considered, Lister had found John – 

The door wooshed open, admitting a wild-eyed, twitching Cat. “I didn’t do nothing; nobody saw me do it; you don’t know I did it!”

The snoring stopped abruptly as Kryten got to his feet. Above them, the lights flickered on and off. “Sir,” Kryten mumbled, looking at them nervously, “we may have a problem.”

“Smegging hell,” Lister yawned, struggling upright, “that’s a relief!”

* * *

This was wrong. It wasn’t just wrong; it was absurd; Rimmers didn’t hug. In point of fact, Rimmer could hardly remember either of his parents having touched him after he was old enough to dress and bathe himself. With some effort, he broke out of John’s embrace, shoving him away, violently. 

“What the smeg do you think you’re doing?!” 

John didn’t seem to care, his eyes staring at some point just above where Rimmer’s eyebrows met. Ah. Well; what of it? It’s not like he was the only deadie in the room. John reached out towards the H with a careful hand, and Rimmer jumped away. 

“Get your filthy hands off me! I’d say I don’t know where they’ve been, but I do, which is what makes it worse!” 

John blinked, still staring at the H. “I just can’t get over it; you’re so stable.”

Even with his newfound anger, Rimmer was taken aback. “I’m sorry; what?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. How do you manage to keep the wave/particle paradox in check so smoothly? The only way we found to do it was to force it into a particle state, but that’s not actually possible. Long-term, I mean. Or, well, at all really, which is the problem, and why you have to calculate for both eventualities.”

“What?”

John shook his head. “Sorry; I’m sorry. It’s just, this job has been my life for close to two years, now. It’s all I ever think about.”

“I’d hardly say that.” Rimmer crossed his arms, bile rising in his throat. 

Finally, John seemed to focus on the here and now. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you seemed to have time for a few extra-curricular activities.” When John just looked at him blankly, Rimmer spat out, “oh, for Io’s sake, man! Have you no common decency! Don’t you even realize what you were doing was depraved? Or is it that you’re screwing so many lab techs in your quarters that you can’t keep them apart; is that it?”

John’s eyebrows raised, in perfect tandem. “Is that what this is about? Saunders? Me and Saunders?”

“Yes,” Rimmer nearly screamed, “that is what this smegging is about, ‘you and Saunders’! You really don’t care, do you? Great Space, you are just like Howard!”

A strange look crept across John’s face, settling uneasily. “Why do you keep saying that? Of course I’m like Howard; so are you.”

This had gone beyond insults now. Rimmer’s mouth opened and closed, wanting to spew out words his brain was unable to supply. There were the sort of scandals you talked about in Rimmer’s family, like uncle James getting drunk at Frank’s wedding reception and flashing people outside the women’s loo, or Aunt Flossie wearing a mini-skirt to her grandmother’s funeral and yelling out ‘good riddance, you old bat’ when they lowered the coffin, and then there was Howard. It wasn’t that they never talked about Howard; they just very obviously didn’t talk about… how he was. Even thinking about it was hard for Rimmer; you trained yourself not to. He knew though; of course he knew. Rimmer’s room had been next to Howard’s, and he’d heard when he brought those boys back, sneaking them into the house in the middle of the night. He’d even caught one of them in the bathroom he shared with his brothers once; he’d grinned and smiled at Rimmer; even winked. And later, of course, there had been the postcards from Europa, full of innuendo and with pictures of half-naked men on the front. Rimmer had even gotten a few after he’d joined JMC, but mercifully Howard had died before Lister had moved in. Rimmer couldn’t even imagine what Lister would have done if he’d found one of those, addressed to Rimmer and signed with kisses as they were. He grabbed the edge of a table for support, and pulled himself together. “You take that back,” he said, through gritted teeth.

John’s eyebrows rose, and his nostrils flared. They were huge, cavernous things; a family of four could go camping in one. At least he didn’t look like that, Rimmer thought with some disdain. “Oh, Arn. I’m so… I honestly had no idea. When mother told me you’d joined JMC, I just assumed that was your way of rebelling. I mean; working on a mining ship, as a junior technician? It was like a slap in the face for father!” 

“Why are you saying these horrible things to me?” It hadn’t meant to come out that pathetic. Rimmer sniffled, wondering why he had to. 

John sighed in apparent exasperation. “I’m an idiot. I should have just called, or e-mailed, or got in touch, somehow. But I thought you were OK; I thought you’d escaped. But you didn’t, did you? You spent your whole life still believing that smeg; still trying to live up to those smegged-up ideals and hating yourself.” 

“I don’t hate myself,” Rimmer mumbled.

“Of course you do, talking like that about Howard! Arnie; we’re all like Howard. You know that.” He paused, taking in Rimmer’s rigid face. His eyes widened. “Smeg, you don’t know, do you? They didn’t tell you?” He shook his head, his mouth tightening to a thin, hard line. “Bastards. That’s low, even for them. Maybe they thought you’d do better if you didn’t know, after what happened to Frank and me and Howard. And it worked, I supposed, if you lived your whole life like that.” He looked up; pity – smegging pity - in his eyes. 

“What are you talking about,” Rimmer managed, his voice going wobbly. Overhead, the lights flickered.

John put his hand on Rimmer’s shoulder, and this time, Rimmer didn’t resist. “We’re all the same, Arnie; you and me and Frank and Howard. We’re clones.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Look; I said I didn’t do nothing, nothing happened, and I wasn’t even there.” Cat looked from one surprised, questioning face to the other. Monkeys were stupid, and that metal monkey wasn’t much better. He’d already explained this!

“Sir, please try to remember. It is vital that we know if anything has happened to the station’s life support systems.”

“Yeah, cut the smeg, man.” 

“I already told you; it wasn’t my fault. After I got bored with eating, I had a horrifying realization!”

Curry-breath narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“I hadn’t made nearly anything in this place mine yet!” Triumphantly, Cat pulled out his small, gilded scenting-bottle. It was nearly empty; there were quite a lot of things to make his here. “I gotta refill this soon,” he mused. 

The little pudgy monkey stared at him. “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“Sir,” square-face interrupted, “I feared the same when I first saw Mr. Cat using it. I took the liberty of analyzing a sample he’d sprayed on Starbug’s kitchen counter-” The monkey made a face again. It was kinda funny-looking, but then, he was always funny-looking. “It’s a pheromone concentrate. Perfectly taste-, and to human olfactory senses, odorless. And utterly harmless.”

“Thank Space fer that.”

“Yeah,” Cat grinned, “I get it from these knobbly things under my arms.”

“Glands, sir,” that metal guy supplied.

“Wonderful.” 

“Anyway, like I said, I’m nearly out. I didn’t wanna start refilling right there in public; what if someone that wasn’t a sexy female cat came along and saw me without my shirt on? These slacks were never meant to go with the topless look.”

“Sir, the station has been abandoned for more than three million years.”

“You can’t be too careful. Besides, I didn’t bring the clamps with me, or any of the…”

“Please just go on.” Lister hovered 

Cat sniffed at Stinky Boots. Not too strongly, for obvious reasons. “Stop making your face look like that; don’t you know pale green clashes horribly with charcoal? Now, where was I? Right; I started making lots of things mine, getting into all the long-windy-bits…”

“Corridors, sir?”

“That’s right, and crawling into all the secret places, ‘cause I wanted to make sure I got all the important stuff. Like that big turney-roundy-noisy thing.”

Those other two guys exchanged glances. “Big turney-roundy-noisy thing?”

“Yeah, in the secret room, with all those monkey-scribbles on the door. All in yellow and red and black. It was big, really big, with all these moving, shiny parts making a massive humming sound. I knew it had to be really important, so I had to make it mine. But I was running low on stuff. So,” he grinned, “I improvised.”

“Kryters,” the monkey whispered, “that big noisy thing, is that…”

“I fear so, sir.” 

Turmeric stain turned to Cat, pointing a stubby finger. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” 

“You peed on the power generator?!”

“I made it mine! What are you looking at me like that for!” 

With a soft sort of humming noise, the lights went out.

* * *

Rimmer had gone numb. He could hear John droning on, but it was like he was talking to some other person, in another room. 

“That was their way of coping, you see? We each had our own way of dealing with mum and dad and how they wanted us to be. Howard rebelled. Completely. Frank conformed. Me? I cut all ties, told them I was dead. I figured it was the only way I could stay sane. I tried to become my own person.”

Rimmer swallowed. “This is all such smeg.”

John quirked a smile. “I know it’s a lot to take in. And you… I can’t imagine what it must have been like. Did…” he looked almost embarrassed. “Did you die like Frank? Heart attack? I always figured it was the pressure, you know, having to live that horrible, stilted life, always worrying about appearances. But at least he had Mum and Dad’s approval. You…”

“I’m pathetic, is that it?”

John shook his head. “You’re not getting it.” 

“What is there to get? We’re clones. Whatever. I don’t see what this has to do with lapsed morals and perverse behavior!” 

“Dad took me aside one evening when I was fifteen and told me all about it.”

“Told you how to bugger around?”

John ignored him. “Gave me a drink even; whiskey, I think it was. Foul stuff. He said he’d told Frank and Howard about it the same way when they’d turned fifteen. He didn’t tell me everything, of course; I had to piece some of it together after I left home. But the gist of it was… you know how Dad always wanted to get into the Space Corps?”

“Of course; it’s all he ever talked about!”

“Well, he didn’t want to take any chances. He and Mum went to a geneering place and asked them to use their DNA to make a template for a perfect child, a boy the Space Corps would beg to recruit.”

“What,” Rimmer snorted, “and that’s us, is it? That’s me?”

“Yes and no.” John frowned. “Dad went a bit over-the-top; he wanted a child with no negative traits whatsoever, just positive ones. Or what he perceived to be positive, anyway. High metabolism, good stamina, tall, athletic, good endurance, high IQ, good eyesight, excellent hearing. No genetic disorders, no allergies, no physical weaknesses.”

“So?” It sounded wonderful. Obviously it hadn’t worked, but Rimmer would have loved to have been like that. Strong. Intelligent. Perfect. 

“So, there were two problems with that. One, genes aren’t everything; a lot depends on conditions in the womb. The odds would have been better with external gestation – you know, an artificial womb – but Mum and Dad couldn’t afford that. Without that, there would be no way to control the state of the egg, what proteins and RNA were present, phosphorylation states, yadda yadda…”

Rimmer stared at him blankly. 

“Anyway, Dad wanted a guarantee, and they couldn’t give it to him. Naturally, he didn’t want to hear it.”

“Of course; I’m sure it had to be expensive. He should expect to get his money’s worth!”

John gave him an odd sort of look, then went on. “The other problem was that getting the smorgasbord of traits he and Mum wanted would be virtually impossible. Mum and Dad kept insisting that only their DNA be used, which meant the geneers would have to use targeted mutation. Because the engineered genes could have unexpected interactions with other genes, with all those desired traits, the end result was guaranteed to be messed up at best, and highly mentally unstable at worst.”

Rimmer’s face twitched. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, that’s what dad said too, and when the geneers refused to do the job, he just went somewhere else with the same demands. Eventually, he found a place that was dodgy enough to set it up.” John quirked a smile. “He showed me the list, you know. It was five pages, neatly typed. The amount of potential in us is insane; in theory, we should all be some sort of swashbuckling space hero.” 

“Hah. Um. Yes,” Rimmer said, his gut sinking. Things were starting to make sense. He didn’t want them to. He desperately didn’t want them to. Quickly, he reached out for a conversational life buoy. “Why four, though?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Why did they have four of us? Frank came out perfect, didn’t he?” It hurt to say it, but it was nonetheless true; Rimmer had grown up hearing nothing else. 

John shrugged. “They got three extra embryos free. I think it was a promotional thing. Mother didn’t want to waste them.” 

“Oh.” 

“Of course, we also came with a list of mental problems as long as your arm. And we were prone to same-sex attraction.”

“You keep saying that,” Rimmer barked, taking a step backwards and pointing his finger accusingly. “Frank was never gay! He married a woman; I saw the pictures Mummy let me buy.”

John nodded. “And I think he loved her. I dated a few women myself. It’s not a black and white thing, though you couldn’t tell that to Dad, of course. When he found out about Howard… well, I think that’s when he decided not to tell you.”

Rimmer stiffened. “Why are you telling me all this? What am I supposed to do? We’re both dead, and so’s the rest of humanity. So’s Mummy and Daddy! So you had a lovely time pretending to have died and fornicating with whomever you liked. So what? Am I supposed to thank you for telling me that my whole life, I’ve been living a lie?” He stopped, abruptly. Had he really said that? Was it true? Was that how he really felt? His legs were shaky. He felt an acute need to sit down, but there were no chairs. 

“Arnie…” John began, quietly, leaning towards him.

Then the lights went out.

* * *

“The power’s out!” Lister grabbed his jacket, rushing towards the door. It wouldn’t open with the electrics shot, but there was probably an override. 

“No, sir; just the lights. The artificial gravity is on, and the air is still circulating. What Mr. Cat did must not have shut the generator down completely, but it’s clearly not at full capacity. Because the backup generator is gone, the system is powering down non-essential functions.” 

Lister pursed his lips. OK. He pressed the Door Open button experimentally, and the doors slid open. “All right. Let’s find Rimmer and get out of here.”

Cat sped ahead of them in the corridor, probably heading straight for the ‘bug. Lister hurried on behind, trying to think. “We should be fine,” Kryten replied to his unasked question, “the power saving sets in automatically. So long as there isn’t any kind of surge in the grid, the power should hold.”

“A surge? You mean like when Cat plugs his industrial strength hairdryer in when we're running the microwave, and that fries the navicomp?" 

"Somewhat like that, sir. No need to worry though; shutting down even a malfunctioning generator of this size would require a truly massive surge, such as the one that destroyed the backup generator."

Lister was beginning to feel ill at ease. "So what destroyed the backup generator?" 

They turned a corner, heading towards the huge sliding doors dividing the residential area from the office spaces. "As I mentioned earlier, sir, it was damaged beyond repair during one of the hard light hologram tests. Keeping a light bee with just soft-light projection capabilities running requires an extraordinary amount of power. Thankfully, Mr. Rimmer's bee contains an auxiliary battery; Starbug alone could never have handled his projection." The doors hissed open, revealing the by now familiar maze of cubicles, looking even more identical in the dark.

"And a hard light bee would need even more power, yeah?" 

"Mr. Rimmer's bee requires less power than a traditional hologram projector, but it was upgraded by a genius. A prototype, such as the one under development here, would certainly require..." Kryten stopped, turning to Lister in alarm. "Oh sir; you don't think..." 

Lister set his jaw. "I think we need to find John Rimmer's lab." 

* * *

"The power's out!" Rimmer jumped back in alarm, instinctively searching for the nearest exit. 

"Don't worry; it's just the lights. Ever since the backup generator fried, they've turned the lights off in the labs and offices at night. It's just an automated power saving feature."

Rimmer hesitated. He had a highly developed instinct for danger, and it wasn't fully satisfied with this explanation. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Of course I’m sure; I’ve worked here for more than two years!” The faint glow of John’s projection – and, Rimmer realized, his own – was the only light source in the room. Rimmer didn’t quite know why, but it suddenly made him feel acutely alone. “Listen,” John said, taking a few steps towards him, “if it worries you, you could always turn me off.”

“No!” Rimmer yelled, surprising himself. 

John started at the unexpected outburst. “You’re going to have to eventually, you know. I’m amazed I’ve lasted this long; our best trial only managed twenty eight seconds before melting into a gooey puddle. It’s OK,” he added, seeing the horror on Rimmer’s face, “it wouldn’t be permanent. Just take my disc out and bring it with you. You must have come here on a ship – if as much time as you say has gone by, I’m sure you have the technology to power a couple of holograms.” 

It wasn’t exactly a question, but Rimmer’s silence more than answered it. 

“Ah. Well, in that case I suppose it would be rather permanent.” 

“I don’t want you to die again,” Rimmer whined, biting down on his tongue immediately to keep from sprouting any more twonking nonsense. 

John was grinning. Actually grinning. "Don't worry, Arnie boy. Holograms can't really die. We're already dead."

That, at least, had to be true. Everything inside Rimmer felt dead. "You're a scientist; can't you think of something? Can't you fix this?"

The room grew terribly, terribly quiet as John mulled this over. "OK," he said finally. "There is one thing we can try."


	5. Chapter 5

“No way.” Rimmer stumbled backwards, hands flailing protectively in front like a pair of neurotic nunchucks. “No way in smegging hell.”

“Look,” John followed him, looking deceptively innocent. Rimmer wasn’t falling for it. “It’s perfectly safe. I’m a scientist. I invented it, for smeg’s sake!” 

“Not the one inside me! Not my bee!” 

“No, and that’s exactly the point. If I can get a look at it, I might be able to tell you how to modify the one inside me to make it work independently of an external power source, just like yours.” 

“No smegging way! You managed to goit up all the others, so I’m not letting you anywhere near mine, thank you very much.”

John’s jaw set. His eyes narrowed, and when he spoke, Rimmer heard the faint echo of their father’s voice. “Arnold, you have to do this. If you want me to keep existing…”

“ _I_ want to keep existing too!” 

“Stop being such a twonking coward! You said you wanted to save me; this is your chance.”

“Why do people always say it’s wrong to be cowardly? Cowards survive.”

"And that's worked out wonderfully for you so far, hasn't it?" A massive ruuumble shook the station, making John's voice tremble towards the end. When Rimmer tried to steady himself, the floor vibrated ominously. 

“What’s below this floor?” Rimmer asked, weakly.

“Storage. Mostly lab equipment. Why?” 

Rimmer nodded, swallowing. “So nothing particularly soft, then.”

John grabbed his arms. “Arnold, if you won’t show me your bee, you’ll have to turn me off. I must have been wrong about the lights; that sounded like the artificial gravity about to give in. The threads are in the floor; they’re very fragile. If they go, they’re likely to short out the surrounding circuitry.”

He was right. Of course John was right. It was the sensible, logical thing to do. Rimmer was good at logical and sensible, he’d always felt. So why was this so hard? “But you look fine.” He did. He looked like Rimmer had always hoped he’d grow up to look like when he was young. Their features were the same; John just looked calmer and more determined. Somehow, it made for an entirely different face. 

“That’s a _bad_ sign!” John slammed his fist against the pedestal behind him. Rimmer flinched, like he’d felt the impact. “If I look good, that means the station is prioritizing my projection, for some reason. Maybe the Last Man Standing algorithm has kicked in, if I’m the only employee left.” 

Like me, Rimmer thought, back on Red Dwarf. I was supposed to be in charge; I was _chosen_ , for once in my life. And I managed to twonk that up royally, didn’t I? “Would it help if you switched to soft light?”

John looked at him as if he’d suggested he’d strip naked and do an interpretive dance. “Oh, right. I’ll just do that, then. And while I’m at it, I’ll make a cheese and onion sandwich out of carbon atoms!” 

“I just thought…”

“You can’t just switch between light states; soft and hard light projection are entirely different things. It’d be like turning an apple into a set of Irish bagpipes.”

“ _Irish_ bagpipes?”

The floor vibrated again, making them both stumble. Rimmer grabbed John for support, yelping. John was just a little taller, he noticed. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? Father must have loved that about him. Oh, hang on; the floor was slightly sloped. Suddenly, John’s hands were on Rimmer’s face, forcing him to look straight at him. “Turn me off, Arnie.”

John’s eyes were brighter. The same wishy-washy brown-green color as Rimmer’s, just brighter, like they’d been digitally enhanced. Rimmer looked into them. His body felt like it was coming apart at the seams. It couldn’t actually do that, could it? He couldn’t reply. There was nothing to say. He couldn’t turn John off, because there’d be no way to turn him back on again, and it’d be Rimmer’s fault. Enough things were Rimmer’s fault already, without him having to add to the pile. John was still looking at him, holding them both steady as the floor rumbled again, actually shaking, this time. John's eyes were on him, and it _hurt_ , and something in Rimmer split wide open; raw. 

He grabbed John’s hand, and pressed it to his chest.

“No,” Rimmer said, and switched to soft light.

* * *

“ _Now_ what?” Lister grabbed the handle of the nearest door with both hands to keep himself from floating gently off the floor. The mainframe was getting hysterical; Kryten couldn’t make heads or tails of the directions on the erratic maps it fed him, but they were fairly sure that they were getting closer to the laboratories reserved for the hard light project. 

“The artificial gravity is failing, sir. Like the lights, it should stabilize itself shortly.”

“Yeah, unless some twonk goes and activates a hologram that sucks up everything from the grid!”

“We can’t be sure that’s what happened, sir…”

“Of course it’s what’s happened!” 

“ _I know_ ,” Kryten wailed, abruptly in near hysterics, “ _I was trying to keep it together so you wouldn’t panic!_ ” 

The radio clipped to Lister’s belt crackled into life with a feline voice. “ _Hey; where is everybody? I don’t think this landing bay’s gonna hold it together much longer!_ ”

Kryten’s wide open, lashless eyes met Lister’s, pleading wordlessly. 

“No. We’re not going unless all of us are going.”

“Mister Lister; please. There’s no time to argue the point!” 

There probably wasn’t. Contrary to popular opinion – if Rimmer’s opinion could be considered popular - Lister wasn’t stupid. Reckless and impulsive, yes. Stubbornly optimistic, certainly, but not stupid. Never stupid. Even so… “No!” He looked around, ignoring the urgent waggling of Kryten’s lack of eyebrows. Nothing leapt to mind. No conveniently placed Deus Ex Machina here. “We can’t just leave him,” he ended, lamely. 

Kryten shrugged, having the decency to look a little embarrassed. “It’s what he would have done.”

“ _It’s what he DID do_ ,” Cat supplied from Lister’s belt. “ _When he went into that swirly thing, to that place, with those guys? For hundreds of years? He left us to die! Were you even there?!_ ”

“It doesn’t matter.” Gravity slammed back with a gut-wrenching ‘thunk’, and Lister made a move for the corridor – or tried – Kryten’s hand was on his arm, holding him back. 

“Begging your pardon sir, but it does. You’re a human being in my care; quite possibly the last human being in existence, and I am hard-wired to protect you at any cost.”

Lister looked back, and nearly yelped; gone was any trace of the sniveling, desperate mechanoid of moments ago. In its place was a pillar of plastisteel, filled with the kind of determination Lister had only ever seen him employ when dealing with a particularly difficult clogged toilet. 

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t let you go.” Kryten’s grip was like steel. Which it probably was, come to that. 

“Oh yeah?” Lister pulled on his arm, surprised when Kryten stood firm. “What’re’ye gonna do; wrench my arm out of its socket? Ye can’t hurt me. Ye said it yerself; it’s in yer programming.”

“ _Guys?_ ” Cat’s voice sounded smaller, like he was trying to curl up on himself. “ _What’s going on?_ ”

“It would pain me to hurt you, sir,” Kryten’s voice barely shook, “but I could do it, if it prevented greater harm.”

Gaping, Lister pulled on his arm again. “Kryten man; let me go!” 

“No can do, sir.” 

“ _Guys? Guys; I think the roof’s stating to cave in…_ ”

“Just let me go!”

“Sir; this is your final warning. I must notify you that any damage I sustain as a result of incapacitating you will not be covered by my warrantee, for which I apologize in advance.” 

“Yer bluffing!”

“I’m _so sorry,_ sir!”

Thwack.

* * *

It gave Rimmer no small satisfaction to see John’s face; a mask of utter amazement. Rimmer had never seen him truly taken off guard before; not to this extent. His mouth was gaping open like a startled owl; his eyes were wide and shining to match. He looked about twelve years old; like Lister, when he found a new toy to tinker with, or some disgusting, sticky food. Why was he thinking about Lister? 

“This… this is…” John’s fingers played at the edge of Rimmer’s projection. It didn’t feel like anything, but Rimmer’s brain felt it _should_ feel like something, so there was a slight sort of mental static; the cognitive dissonance equivalent of a tickle. 

“Stop that,” Rimmer said, quietly. It didn’t feel bad. It felt odd. Like John was intruding; trespassing where he shouldn’t be.

“It’s amazing. I can _feel_ your projection.” John looked up, bursting with excitement. “I can feel _you!_ ”

“Please don’t.” 

“Every single particle – even when it isn’t a particle, which doesn’t make sense – contains information. It's like DNA. The light doesn’t just make up you; it _is_ you. Whoever made this bee was an absolute genius!”

“That’s absolutely smegging wonderful,” Rimmer forced out through gritted teeth.

“It’s communicating… it’s actually communicating with me! Or trying to; I’m not close enough.” John ran his hands over Rimmer’s chest. It felt like… there were no words for what it felt like. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and if Rimmer had any say in it, nothing like it would ever happen again. 

“Look; are you quite done? It feels a bit… tingly.”

John shook – not just his head; his entire body. “No. No, no, no… I need more time. This is revolutionary; I need to study this.” 

A small plastic bottle rolled along a nearby shelf, teetering on the edge, pointedly not falling. The entire station was rumbling now – softly, ominously; like a snoring tiger. “Have you gone absolutely swutting bonkers?” Rimmer spluttered. “The station is falling apart!” 

John didn’t even look at him. “I can’t rush this, Arnold. This is a scientific breakthrough; light years ahead of what we were doing here. Hard and soft light states co-existing, perfectly balanced, perfectly stable. Advanced beyond anything I’ve ever seen, yet so obvious. Almost familiar.” He paused, fingers skirting Rimmer’s non-existent form. “Why is it familiar?” 

“We’re clones, you skutter-brained idiot; of course it’s familiar!”

“I don’t mean you; I mean the design. It doesn’t make sense. Why would a design years ahead of anything I’ve worked with seem so familiar to me?” 

Those twonking fingers were still roaming, just skirting the edge of Rimmer’s projection, never dipping beneath. It was intrusive and annoying at the same time; like being tickled with a sexual aid by a perfect stranger. Or worse yet, your own brother. “So find out; stick your fingers inside me and take what you need.” Rimmer winced at the words. That hadn’t come out right. 

John didn’t seem to have noticed. “Like I said; I can’t rush this.” 

A ceiling tile broke lose above them, falling through Rimmer and into the gap that was forming between his legs. The faint glow of electronic machinery glimmered beyond. Rimmer yelped. “B… but…”

“I have to ease into it; feel my way forward. There’s no telling what would happen if I break the barrier withou…”

Rimmer heaved for breath that wouldn’t come. He looked down. His hand was clenching John’s hand, half of which was stuck right through Rimmer’s chest. There was a faint sort of glow where they met, rings of blue and white light; ripples in Rimmer’s surface. Rimmer looked up, with slowly rising panic. John’s eyes were glowing too, almost bulging; the light from his projection pulsing in a steady, rapid beat. Half a second blindly staring, then… _White noise. Panic. Red, hot, pounding beat. John’s face, terrified. His own face, looking back at John. Hands, tying him to a tree. John’s graduation, viewed from the car, through neatly cleaned windows. A woman’s breasts, perky and terrifying; Nirvanah? No; a young girl; John’s girlfriend, whose name Rimmer had never known was April. Frank’s dog, Canine, biting him in the leg. Father laughing. A thick, hard cock, sliding out of his – no, John’s mouth; Rimmer could taste it, feel the velvet skin on his tongue. Lister’s face, laughing. Himself inside Lister’s body, looking down, hands shaking. Red Dwarf, exploding, in the moments of his death. Rows of calculations he couldn’t possibly understand; Saunders’s face, too, too close. Lister’s face. Lister’s lifeless body, after their future selves attacked. Panic. White noise. John’s face, softly smiling._ Rimmer yelped, half willing the flood of memories to stop, half silently screaming for them to keep going, but they were gone; already fading, like John’s face. “No,” Rimmer whispered.

“I’m s-” said John, blinking out of existence. 

The floor gave out as Rimmer screamed, and then, so did his body.


	6. Chapter 6

It was dark, but then again it usually was when you didn’t have eyes. In this state, trapped in his bee, Rimmer was only aware of his surroundings through a vague sort of all-encompassing sense; neither sight nor hearing nor touch, but somehow all of the above. Human brains had not evolved to make sense of that sort of thing, and despite being only a simulation, a human brain was what Rimmer’s brain was a simulation _of_. He could still sense the trembling of the station surrounding him, the debris under which he was trapped, and the lack of light – including, of course, his body. 

In a word, he was smegged. 

Well, at least no one would ever know he… know what Howard had accused him of. This was less of a comforting thought than expected. Rimmer had heard that people who lost an arm or a leg sometimes felt they were still there. Phantom limbs, they called it. In his current form, Rimmer had a phantom body; one he could not move or see or even feel. But he _knew_ it was there. 

This must be what it was like to be buried alive. If he had adrenal glands, he might have panicked. Not having them hadn’t seemed to stop him before, but perhaps it was different when he was like this. Then again, he didn’t seem to be feeling much of everything. Whenever he tried to think about what had happened, his thoughts slipped away from him. All he had was this pseudo-sensation and the non-feeling of his body in the dark. The rumbling was growing more frequent; the station was clearly falling apart. Rimmer knew how it must feel. There was no way for him to shut off what little remained of his simulation in this state, but there was a power-save mode he’d been forced to use on one or two previous occasions. On the one hand, they would only delay the inevitable, but on the other, it would mean he’d be slightly less aware for the short time he had left in which to exist. Assuming his bee escaped the destruction of the station in one piece, which was unlikely, it could not function indefinitely in the vacuum of space. 

He closed his eyes, then remembered he didn’t have any. He closed them anyway. It made no difference. 

Power save mode. 

The world, such as he could experience it, grew even fainter and further away by increments. Dullness enveloped him; the vibrations and almost-sounds faded away. There was a gentle rocking, a far-away something like a rhythm; regular thuds, like the heartbeat he didn’t have. Low, rolling thunder. Gentle rocking. 

Nothing. Noth-

* * *

From a distance, the dancing cascades of plasma, energy and debris were actually quite beautiful, Lister thought. There was no sound in space, not that they would have heard anything this far away, but there was just something about an explosion without sound that made it seem unreal, somehow. Like fancy fireworks. Just special effects. Still, it shouldn’t be beautiful. Should it? 

He dug into the folds of his jacket, and with one steady hand, extracted the oblong object hiding there. On the side of Rimmer’s bee, a red light flickered steadily, indicating power-save-mode. Lister held it carefully; it felt invasive, holding an entire person in his hand like that. Yeah, he’d done worse things to Rimmer over the years, his bee too, come to that, but that had been a spur of the moment thing, and he’d been angry. Seeing him like this… (Seeing him like that, stuck in the caved-in floor, jammed between a fallen light-fixture and a massive chunk of plasticrete…)

“Hey man,” he said, softly. The bee rolled easily back and forth on his palm. “Thought you might enjoy a bit of a rest. I dunno if that’s how these things work. Must have been some shock you had, though.” The light kept blinking, in non-response. Kryten was still trying to beat his head back into shape from where Lister had hit him with the bit of broken railing, and Cat was sleeping off the adrenaline burst he’d had getting them out of there. They had a moment to themselves. “I suppose I should be angry at ya for blowing up the station, but honestly I think that was a bit of a team effort. Besides, I can’t really blame ya. If it’d been my brother in there, I’d have done the same thing. In fact,” he cracked a grin, watching the dying explosion as it faded out, “I’m impressed. You’d’ve never done that a few years ago, you know.”

The light stopped blinking. Lister jumped up, cradling the bee in both hands like it was an egg about to hatch. Not a bad metaphor, perhaps, he thought. He waited a few seconds, shifting his weight from foot to foot, but nothing happened. Then, slowly, the light shifted to a steady green; stand-by. Lister sighed. 

“I hear ya. Better get a lie-in while ye can, am I right?” 

Taking care not to accidentally press any buttons, Lister put the bee back inside his jacket, and headed over to the medi-bay. Rimmer would be safe there until he chose to come back online.

* * *

Lister did his best not to grin when he heard the familiar nasal cough – an impressive feat – behind him in the cockpit seven hours later. 

“Yer late,” he said, kicking the navigator’s seat the other way around, as an invitation. “Shift started an hour ago.” 

“That’s not my station.”

Lister shrugged, offering no further explanation. He gave an internal whoop of triumph when Rimmer presently sat down next to him, with no explanation of his own. 

“I suppose,” Rimmer said, not looking at him, “there’s no chance you found…”

Lister shook his head. “I would’ve told ya. We would have found some way to timeshare, or… something,” he ended, lamely. “We’d’ve worked something out.”

Rimmer didn’t nod, but shifted faintly in his seat. 

“Hey, tell you something that’ll blow yer mind?” He chanced a quick smile. Rimmer decidedly did not return it. 

“My mind’s had all the blowing it can take for one un-lifetime, thank you very much.”

“Nah, you’ll love this.”

“I doubt it.”

“Remember Legion?”

“Lister…” 

“No, honestly, you have to hear this!” Rimmer rolled his eyes, and Lister pressed on. “Kryten downloaded the project archives when we were there. D’you know who was part of the project team?” 

Rimmer sat up, tilting his head cautiously. “That was decades and decades after John’s research took place - it couldn’t have been…”

Lister waved a hand impatiently. “It wasn’t John. There were no Rimmers on staff; we would have noticed when Kryten first filed the info. But there was a Saunders.”

Rimmer’s eyes widened. He gripped the arms of his chair. “Saunders!?”

“Audrey Juliette Saunders. Daughter of John Rimmer and Eustace Saunders. Seems she took after her old man. Her file states she was a world-renown physicist, a pioneer of experimental holography. Hand picked for the project.” 

“Daughter?” Rimmer stared at the viewscreen. He didn’t sound angry. He didn’t sound… anything. 

“Yeah. Gene-mixed clone, not adopted. They went to Io for the procedure, if you can believe it.”

Rimmer nodded. Lister did not expect him to say anything, and he didn’t, his expression that particular shade of unreadable reserved for things for which he had no frame of reference. Lister saw that one more and more, lately. 

They rode in silence for a while, Rimmer wordlessly checking the coordinates and pressing buttons. After what seemed to Lister like hours, he finally sat back and rubbed his temple. 

“Clones,” he said. “We’re all clones. All the Rimmer brothers.”

Lister tried to make a nonplussed gesture. It made quite a bit of sense, come to think. 

“You wouldn’t know it if you ever met Howard.”

“Rimmer, he looked exactly like you! I’ve seen pictures.”

“That was when he was young. I came home one year from school to find him with an entirely different face. Mum said it was puberty, but he was 19 at the time. I think he might have gotten surgery. Dad kept talking about the importance of ‘looking the part’, and Howard failed his first attempt to get into cadet school.” Rimmer shrugged. “Might have been his own idea, I don’t know. He got in eventually, made an excellent career for himself for about ten years, then boffed off to Europa.”

The gay capital of the solar system. Lister knew better than to comment.

“Mum and dad had him declared legally dead.”

“Is that a thing, in your family?”

“It allowed JMC to resurrect his hologram and keep him working for them. The personality download was taken before he…” Rimmer tried in vain to gesticulate, so Lister came to his rescue.

“Right, right.” Lister frowned. “D’you suppose he’s still out there, then?” 

“Who smegging cares? And if he is, what are the chances we’ll ever meet him?” Rimmer sighed. “I don’t know. None of us ever looked like dad, come to think.”

“The way they messed around with those genes, I’m not surprised.”

Rimmer crossed his arms and gave a snort. “None of that matters. I’m still a Rimmer; I’ve still got his DNA, no matter how it was jiggled about before I gestated.” 

“So?”

“ _So,_ I have a family legacy to live up to. I’m my father’s son. Always have been, always will be.” 

Lister considered for a bit, then nodded to himself. Now was definitely the right time. He unzipped a pocket in his jacket, and took out a square of what looked like faded paper. “Here,” he said, proffering it to Rimmer, who took it without comment. “I had Kryten mock it up for ya,” Lister explained, as Rimmer turned the picture this way and that.

“How did he do that,” he said eventually, his voice unusually quiet.

“You said it yerself; you’re all clones. Took a bit of work, but we managed to create a composite using bits of Frank and John and Howard, tweak it a bit, and…” He tried a smile. “What do you think?”

Rimmer stared at the photo. There was John, off to the side as usual. There was Howard’s unmistakable scowl. Frank, holding up the rope and grinning. And then, the tree, and in front of it now, previously visible foot seamlessly merged with reconstructed legs, stood a sullen, hazel-eyed, wild-haired little boy in the Io House winter uniform. 

“I think you’re right,” Rimmer said, his finger tracing the contours of the younger self he technically never had been. “There is a certain family resemblance.”


End file.
